It’s one of the blogosphere’s favorite tech topics. Every new nugget of competitive information is fodder for an avalanche of coverage. Oftentimes, a story will declare that Android is beating iOS or that iOS is beating Android.

Really, though, it’s silly to obsess over any one data point. If what you’re after is a clear idea of how the world’s two dominant mobile operating systems are doing — rather than an excuse to make bold proclamations and/or cheer for your favorite — you want to consider lots of data points.

So that’s what I’m doing in this post. I’ve rustled up results from a bunch of studies, focusing on information that’s relatively fresh. (In some cases, it dates from the fourth quarter of 2012 — stats for the first quarter of this year are still scarce.)

A few notes on this exercise:

I’m not really going to look at changes over time. Trajectories are important, but there’s a limit to how much I can do in one story.

I won’t do deep analysis of why the numbers look the way they do. I’m collecting rather than interpreting, though I hope that some of you will draw conclusions in the comments.

I’m not going to include specific numbers for anything other than iOS and Android. Sorry, Windows Phone and BlackBerry — I’ll come back to you and how you’re doing at some point, I promise.

I’m not endorsing any of these studies. That’s dangerous unless you have a thorough knowledge of the methodology behind the numbers. Which I don’t.

Without any further ado, here are some key competitive questions, and the answers as provided by various research firms.

Which platform is selling the most smartphones?

In research conducted from mid-November through mid-February, Kantar Worldpanel Comtech showed sales of all Android phones outpacing the iPhone by a hefty margin: 52.1 percent to 43.5 percent. However, judging from past Kantar studies, these figures may be more of a freeze-frame of the competition at one particular point in time than a permanent reality: last year, Kantar had Android in the lead for a spell, and then it said that iOS had bounced back into first place.
Then there’s Comscore’s MobiLens study, which attempts to measure the smartphone platforms used by everyone in the U.S. over the age of 13 — not just ones sold recently, but everything. The numbers it released this month are pretty similar to Kantar’s.

That’s the U.S. — how about everywhere else?

Worldwide, all those companies making Android phones sell a lot more units than Apple sells of the iPhone, says IDC. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Android had more than 70 percent share, vs. 21 percent for the iPhone.

And tablets?

Tablet shipment data is harder to come by than data for phones, and the most recent specific numbers by platform I could find were IDC’s full-year estimates for 2012, which it released on December 5 of last year. They had demand for 7″ Android tablets adding up to a decrease in the iPad’s dominance — but iOS still remained the most popular tablet operating system.

Which companies are selling the most smartphones?

Worldwide, according to IDC, Samsung — which deals primarily, but not exclusively in Android models — was the top manufacturer in the fourth quarter of last year, unit-wise. Apple was in second place.
In the U.S., however, Strategy Analytics says that Apple’s iPhone shipments outpaced Samsung. (Strategy Analytics says that its numbers are for “mobile phones,” so they may include plain ol’ flip phones as well as smartphones.)

Who’s making money selling smartphones?

As you might guess from the above two charts, Apple and Samsung are the ones raking in the bucks, says Canaccord Genuity. And Apple is raking in far more of them than Samsung, taking 72 percent of the profit in the last quarter of 2012. Samsung made 29 percent of the industry’s profit — mostly for Android phones, although it also has Windows Phone handsets. Everybody else in the business, including Android-centric makers such as HTC and Motorola, either broke even or lost money — which is why Apple and Samsung’s profits add up to more than 100 percent.

Which platform has the most apps?

After years of obsessing over the sheer quantity of apps available for these two platforms, the numbers seem to be similar, and similarly impressive, on both sides. Both Apple and Google currently claim more than 800,000 third-party programs for their respective platform.

What do the numbers look like for tablet-specific apps?

For iOS, Apple says there are more than 300,000 iPad-optimized programs. For Android: I wish I knew! As far as I know, Google hasn’t disclosed this number. But it’s safe to say that it remains piddling compared to Apple’s figure.

O.K., who has the best apps?

I hesitate to bring this up, because app quality is inherently subjective. But a company called uTest uses a system called Applause to crawl Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play, collecting user reviews and rankings. It then turns this data into scores from 1 to 100 for individual apps, and calculates average scores for each platform. In data published in a ReadWrite story in January, it said that the average iOS app, with a score of 68.5, is superior to the average Android app, at 63.3.

Which platform’s users are downloading the most apps?

According to Canalys, just over half of all apps downloaded in the first quarter of this year were for Android. iOS, at about 40 percent share, was the only other big-time player.

Who’s making money from app downloads?

According to Canalys’s data for the first quarter of this year, iOS users are spending much more on apps even if they’re downloading fewer of them overall.

Which platform gets used most on the Internet?

NetMarketShare publishes monthly stats on which browsers and operating systems are being used on the Net. Its report for March 2013 says that among mobile devices, iOS rules with 60.1 percent share. Android is way behind at 24.9 percent. Given that there are more Android devices out there, the data suggests that iOS users are disproportionately active online.But here’s something weird: StatCounter, which does a similar study, comes up with numbers that are nothing like NetMarketShare’s. Its figures for March show Android usage easily outpacing iOS. Of course, the two organizations’ methodology may be radically different; I’m not sure, for instance, whether both, either or neither of them include the iPad in these numbers. But the disparity is a healthy reminder that it’s risky to draw conclusions from data you don’t know very much about.

Which platform is more widely used in business, iOS or Android?

A Citrix report covering the fourth quarter of 2012 comes as close to addressing this question as any recent study I’ve seen. It covers Citrix customers that “have deployed enterprise mobility management in the cloud,” and shows iOS as trouncing Android and everything else.

So who is winning — iOS or Android?

You had to ask, huh?

On some level, it’s too crude a question to take very seriously. There are just too many ways to define “winning,” and neither platform leads in every area. But here’s the closest thing to an objective answer I can manage.

“Android if you’re talking about market share; iOS if you mean financial success. So far, this is a strikingly different market than the PC business back in the 1990s, when market share translated directly into financial success.”

You, of course, are entitled to come to a different conclusion — and if you do, I hope you’ll share it in the comments.

The future of apple will go down hill. They have no ideas for the future. Only androids do lol. You saw it here first. iphones are going out of style. Androids are on the come up to out sell apple for years to come. No more copyi g from androids lol. Apple is done. You'll see soon enough.

The reason Android doesn't make as much profit is because they put a lot more money and work into their phones, because Android is quality and Apple is popular. That's also why the apps are better because developers don't put them on android

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Apple or IPhone followers are like the masses who elected the current president for a second term. Brainwashed. Clearly an inferior product based on price and usability but they still buy in on the hype.

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@kevychevy1 Usage stats are what tells the tale and iOs is shrinking and losing the battle . The only thing that profit margins tell me is bloat and people over paid for products that are near equal or inferior now that Steve Jobs is gone. Apple is on it's way out, in my opinion, the sizzle is gone.

I think you are very much mistaken. When a very little number of IOS devices account for the majority of usage on the internet, that tells me that many Android devices are lying discharged in a drawer. Or maybe many Android phone users are simply using their phones as a feature phone.

When it comes to who makes a profit from making devices and apps, I believe this is just as important as the usage. Those who actually make money from making devices or apps will be able to make better devices and apps. For the moment this is Apple and IOS developers. This means that iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch users get a better device and the same users get better apps.

@benteraev@gorillaads1 You realize that Running in desktop mode on a wifi connection probably is not included in the web browsing numbers and that because android is more competative as a whole the manufacturers dont make as much on the phones and include more features hardware wise then apple does. More styles of phone and a more diverse market means more competition...more competition means less profit margins. Overpaying for apple is what people always do. You get an inferior product and have app developers pay for licensing of software for less development. Yes you get sometimes a more stable app based on one phone but you get less developers since you are using a limited version of linux/unix with iOS over the limitless version that is Android. Android is a mobile Linux.

It is only time before Windows becomes more dominant then apple in the business field since most businesses use windows and that integrates better cross platform not to mention windows 8 and 10. easy transition.

Android will always dominate the world of personal phones because of competition from a free OS.

1) google`s main source of revenue does not come from selling android devices. Android is a free beer OS. Financial success of Apple does not translate to Google losing, because Google doesn'`t need to earn money directly from Android. Also, sales of Android devices by non brand name companies, especially in China, typical hides earnings to avoid taxation. They are not losing money making android devices.

2) Compilation of most statistical companies have limited access to data from non-English speaking countries, which means from usage on the internet, to units sold, to number of apps available, are all tilting heavily in Android`s favor. Adding number of Chinese and Indian apps to the list and you will have a near doubling of apps on Android`s side.

1) Android is not a free beer OS. You are paying with your privacy and with ads. Google does not need to make money from Android, I agree. But device manufacturers do. When device manufacturers make only very little profits from selling low-end phones, there will be little money to create new great features/inventions.

2) Personally I don't care if an appstore has 10.000 apps or 10.000.000. What is important to me is the number of quality apps. Any appstore will have some number of apps that are complete garbage. I think the best apps (for the users) are going to be on the platform where developers can actually make money. This is not the case on Android. I think that google in it's effort to be "open" has sacrificed some of the profitability for app-developers. It's much easier to download cracked apps on android. Also for Android devices there are essentially thousands of different combinations of screen sizes, camera abilities, processor power, etc. making it much more difficult (expensive) to make the same quality of apps.

Of course if your definition of "winning" is if 1 billion people in china and india are using cheap crap Android devices...then yes: Android is winning.

I have used both iphone 5 & samsung galaxy s4 & I realized that its just a matter of time when apple will fall with their pathetic single device. Android devices are now clealy much more powerful than apple devices . Apple can't even give us a device which has more than 1 GB RAM!!!!

It is like comparing two fine cheeses. There are just too many factors to consider. It is obviously a close race. But the market for app developers is huge. Even though the software sells dirt cheap :( I have posted a far simpler article that roughly comes to the same conclusion on my own blogg. http://jonathonbevan.wordpress.com/ I will put a link to this artilce on my blogg next time I update it, probably tomorrow.. As this research is better than I did in the two hours I spent on the issue :) My site is about Android Application Development - but everyone is always interested in this question and I am not taking sides.

Bit of a late comment on this but...My view is that Android's primary attraction (and corresponding devices) is that it's cheap. However, there are a number of things, I believe, that are going to start to work against it - it doesn't work as well as iOS (e.g. updates can result in irritating problems with phones), the fact that Google records everything you do and joins up all of your data in the background also isn't good.

Also, in my experience the Android handsets I've had tend to be buggy. I've had 2 Galaxy S2s, an HTC one and a Galaxy S3 - all developed problems ranging from screen failures (no not from dropping it when drunk!) to an overheating comms unit to data loss (one of my phones completely deleted everything on the SD card - i.e. to the point where a file recovery programme couldn't recover files).

So all in all, I think Android is cheaper, but it's inferior. My iPhone is much better. Samsung is frankly poor quality. Apple has the correct strategy - it should be about financial performance, not market share. Apple will continue to go from strength to strength, as will Android, but selling to different markets, and Apple will continue to provide the better product.

Ignorant much? It's a known fact that iOS is buggy crashes more than Android. You pay more for a hackaround OS, a tin can and a logo, you call that innovative? I call it a reflection of your overall education level. And your experience doesn't matter, because the only people who have your problems are the only ones who actually want to be negative and pessimistic. Take your selfish and lazy ideas and push them on to a crowd who will actually buy your antiquated ideological BS.

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As for my Galaxy S5 Samsung Product being inferior and frankly poor quality:

I can take it in the shower and listen to music while taking a shower and water doesn't hurt it. Ya, poor craftsmanship there huh? Oh, and I've dropped it numerous times and it hasn't cracked. Brother dropped his Iphone 6 and his screen is spider web cracked. Samsung is so inferior and poor quality right?..... Keep drinking Apple's Kool-aid. Have a Samsung LCD HDTV. Had it for like 6 years now. Pixel turned green on me about 2 years after I got TV. Just one pixel, but it drove me nuts. Samsung replaced my screen to fix my end-user experience. No questions asked. Samsung cares about it's customers. Apple cares about $$$.

@brianmoreau Think about it this way, do you think that people who are looking for the cheapest phone will want to pay big $$ for your app? How about people who are willing to spend $$ freely on new products?

@JoeLarsen Well first off, C# is not as hard as C++ to code in. Most OS is designed in C++/ Xcode may be easier than C# or Java, but that doesn't excuse the fact that Apple has more exclusive apps, better functionality, and looks 10x better, and even extra features when the share the same app.

@brianmoreau thats because people get paid way more for apple apps, its easier to code, and there are more people to help you learn to code. Xcode is one of the easiest tools to make an app and its free. Android you need to either learn Java script or some C#. Apple you done even need to code, however if you want to all C# work as-well.